It's understandable if Chicagoans are skeptical about President Barack Obama's designation of the historic Pullman factory district as the city's first national monument.

Thursday's ceremony can't change the fact that Pullman sits some 15 miles from downtown, far from the glitter of Millennium Park, and is flanked by violence-plagued neighborhoods like nearby Roseland.

Even so, it would be wrong to dismiss out of hand the rosy forecasts that Pullman's boosters are making: After 10 years, they predict, the national monument will draw 300,000 visitors annually, at least six times more than it attracts today.

Perhaps, someday, those dreams will come true. Pullman, after all, is the site of a crucial chapter in the American labor movement. That story unfolded on an elegant stage comprised of beautifully crafted buildings that still stand.

Now Pullman has the backing of Chicago philanthropists, who have promised nearly $8 million toward the restoration of the district, and the National Park Service, whose rangers signify that an attraction is both safe and well worth seeing.

"I know something about branding and one of the best brands in this country is the arrowhead of the National Park Service," U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, whose department includes the Park Service, said at Thursday's event.

Bisected by 111th Street and principally shaped by architect Solon Beman in the 1880s and 1890s, Pullman embodies the aspirations of railroad car manufacturer George Pullman to create a model company town.

Representatives from the National Park Service join U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell in a tour of the Pullman State Historic Site on Feb. 19, 2015. (Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune)

Representatives from the National Park Service join U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell in a tour of the Pullman State Historic Site on Feb. 19, 2015. (Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune)

From its ornate Hotel Florence to its mansard-roofed row houses and a town square framed by Renaissance arcades, Pullman's buildings and urban spaces exude a sense of French-inspired formality and decorum.

Like the "White City" of monumental Beaux-Arts buildings at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the model town represented a search for order in the face of out-of-control urban growth.

Yet things went awry when demand for railroad cars plummeted, the company cut workers' wages without lowering their rents, and Pullman workers went on strike in 1894. The buildings, which glinted in the bright winter sun like a movie set Thursday, underscore the bitter irony of Pullman's past.

So it was fitting Thursday that Obama addressed the oddity of putting this tension-filled site on the same list of national monuments as natural wonders like Muir Woods north of San Francisco.

"It is right that we think of our national monuments as these amazing vistas, and mountains, and rivers," he said. "But part of what we're preserving here is also history."

The Pullman Historic District, which dates to the 1880s, was home to the now-defunct Pullman Palace Car Co., which made sleeper cars for rail passengers. The area included worker housing, making it one of the country's first "company towns."

That history, as Obama pointed out, reached beyond the 1894 strike to the African-American Pullman porters, who fought in the early 20th century for better wages, working conditions and the right to unionize. Their battle, in turn, laid the foundation for the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the election of the first black president in 2008.

"Without Pullman, I might not be there," Obama said, referring to the White House.

Fair enough, but what is Pullman's future?

It may be brighter than you think.

During a tour Thursday, David Doig, former head of the Chicago Park District and now president of Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, pointed out some of the 50 rowhouses that his nonprofit firm has rehabbed.

"This was like Drug Central," Doig said as showed off some of the brick homes north of 111th, with their distinctive red and green trim.

Doig also showed off an ecology-minded Method soap factory just outside the district that his firm developed. A produce-growing greenhouse is under construction on its roof.

The Driehaus Foundation of Chicago is funding a design competition, overseen by Doig's firm, which will come up with plans for artists' live-work housing, to be built on the site of existing buildings and a vacant lot in Pullman. Twenty architectural firms have expressed interest in the project, including JAHN, Landon Bone Baker and Johnson & Lee.

The Park Service's involvement should further boost Pullman's revival. The state, which did much to restore Pullman's fire-damaged administration building, donated the structure to the Park Service last year. The Park Service plans to transform the building into a visitor center.

Even so, Pullman faces numerous hurdles before it can become a bona-fide tourist attraction. It is without restaurants or a functioning hotel. While it is served by Metra, there is no CTA rapid-transit service. North of 111th, stretches of vacant rowhouses scar the community's face.

A prime symbol of the community, the Hotel Florence, faces an uncertain future. Its restoration is expected to be finished later this year, but the building is dormant. Doig said he hopes that the national monument designation will spur someone to convert it to a bed and breakfast.